Solar light mod.

Very nice! Love this one. Gonna hit the dollar store tomorrow to see if I get inspired. Much nicer than the cheap and boring white outdoor garden led spotlights I picked up. Maybe I can mod those. Curious about putting a small lithium pack in instead of the nimh batteries. Not sure if mine actually last a full night.

The Griffiths Family

I bought a bag of 100. Didn't dare buying the bag of 1000 for now. If it turns out to be any good, I will buy the big bag. I love LEDs and lights of all kind. You might say; "I am enlightened" :)

I don't... I drop by from time to time. But I'm a Clive and Electroboom kind of guy I guess. It's the facial hair and special accents I think. Explosions help too.

I'm a diffused slow color changing LED convert thanks to Brother Clive! I bought a big bag of 'em and haven't regretted a thing! :D

Michael Thompson

Jim, you must not be subscribed to Julian Illet's channel. He uses BluTack all the time.

Too bad they sell shit at our Dollar stores in Canada. Nothing this fancy. I wonder how this looks with those slow flashing LEDs you used to make a stained glass matrix a few videos ago. The 2 LEDs would change color randomly, and should look cool too, but I am not sure if they would be as bright as these. What do you think?

I've got to try this, it looks amazing! Blue and green work so well.

Brendan Perkins

Jim, yeah! The blue/white tack is a great idea that I'll have to start doing as well. I even just ordered some from Amazon a couple days ago! For alligator clips I recently learned to put heat shrink tubing over each jaw to soften the bite and give better grip. For some things I use small locking forceps.

Martel DuVigneaud

Oh yes, there it is!

What a simple elegant hack. I really agree that the blue and green are great together. Clive rocks on!

Wery nice Clive! Colors...! :)

Beautiful hack as usual!

Michael Thompson

I've not smelled any that smells like vinegar... Here the plumbing/building stuff smells....... sort of lightly solventy? Plasticy? It has it's own unique aroma really. I guess I assumed it to be some kind of drying agent, and/or anti-microbial thing. But looking at the MSDS... Yeah, acetic acid... But to me (and/or here) it doesn't smell like vinegar... Whereas the aquarium/food silicone doesn't have much or any smell to it, possibly just slightly medicine/sanitary-like... And the main difference does indeed seem to be that it doesn't have vinegar in it :D I'm going to have to intentionally put some on some traces now to see what happens! I'm curious as it doesn't seem to make things like steel roofing or car bodies (round windscreens) rust.....! But I'm also quite pleased to know this, as otherwise I'm sure I'd have stuck silicone sealant over non-critical/low voltage electronic stuff without ever thinking it could make it corrode!

Jim, The aquarium grade sealant is perfect for electronic applications as it does not have acetic acid. Just beware of the stuff that smells like vinegar that is acetic acid.

Charles Bruckner

Oh shite - that's another LED light if have to buy from Dealz in bulk! lol The outside of my house is almost visible from space thanks to Clive :D Great thing is, with all the outside lights away from the house, the flies and moths don't seem to be attracted to the house lights anymore.

John Carr

Now I'm running back through my head thinking of the various electronic places I might have put silicone. I'm fairly sure only for a few outdoor LEDs and small garden light solar cells, Though I did put some bathroom sealant silicone over the terminals of my washing machine pump, covering them from the outside... But they were heavily corroded to begin with due to being exposed and underneath a cheaply manufactured old washing machine pump....! I'm sure those are big enough and cleaned up enough that the small amount of any acid in the now sealed exterior won't cause too many issues. Or, if it does, I've also now replaced the huge chunk of copper wire "fuse" with an actual fuse...

You can get neutral curing silicone for things like mirrors and other applications where the acid liberation is an issue. It can get trapped in enclosures and voids and remain active, corroding connections.

Big Clive

Oh thanks. Did not know that... I buy silicone sealant suitable for fish tanks and food plant applications generally, so I presume I've mostly used that. It's specifically only silicone so as to not kill fish (or, you know, humans). However I've got a few tubes of bathroom and roof sealant kicking round and would not have thought to not use them on electronics!!!! Though I would hope/think that solar modules on those lights should have enough plastic around the edges to keep a little vinegar out..... If they don't, the quality is probably so terrible that they wouldn't survive anyway?

Darn it now I will have to go to my local dollar store and try to find one of those cracked glass lights. That red and blue pattern was perfect for a 70's ish psychedelic affect that I love.

Charles Bruckner

Be careful of what silicone sealant you use, Many use acetic acid as a curing agent that will eat copper and destroy traces on the solar panel. Just FYI. And I love the little silica-gell packets, I reuse them all the time. I just pop them in to a toaster oven set to 170F. (I use my modified toaster oven I use for reflow PCB's) for 1 hour and they are good as new. I pop them into bags of crisps and other items that need to stay dry. And they are 100% better for drying out water logged phones ect ect. I would just use a dab of hot melt to secure the packet in the light so it doesn't toss about. And good idea on the bung.

Charles Bruckner

Ok I totally missed that and I will have to review. LAMFO

Charles Bruckner

0:36 any excuse to draw a penis.

evilution

Well, what do you know! After many previous attempts at opening the light in question, the front just unscrewed with relative ease! Clive, your videos must give me extra strength. 🙂

I have a water feature light in which I'd like to change the LEDs. If only I could get the case open without bursting it.

Blutack for holding components to allow soldering leads together. Genius. So much frustration trying to get alligator clips to hold onto LEDs......... If possible (with hot melt glue mounting it usually is...) you can pop the solar panels out and re-seat them on a bed of silicone caulk. That makes for a seal that lasts basically forever. You can also use it on any jar-type screw threads, and poke a silica gel pack inside for any condensation. Though I've tended to add a bung that would pop out if the battery or anything else ever decided to explode/get gassy.

now i wanna go buy cheap solar lights, some random LED and random bits abd bots and go modify

Orkekum